The entire month of November was highly impacted by the fact that I was going on vacation. Not only did I hustle to reach my goals I have set with the Kickstarter team, but I also had a massive deadline for my next book, My Creative Side Business, before my departure; one that I missed and then found myself sitting in Cape Town trying to edit an interview with Shayna, the founder of Espresso English, on my iPad. A complete mess.

One of my highlights of the month was visiting the Comedy Café Berlin that I helped bring on Kickstarter earlier this year. Also, the meeting with Steffen Stäuber, who is currently on a research trip around the world, made this month a very inspiring one.

Writing this short post after my vacation is harder than ever because all I can think about is the road trip I took with Roy Potterill, the founder of Mobile Media Mob, along the coast of South Africa. Follow #RoamTrip2015 to see all the pictures we took along the way. Roy is still posting some!

However, before we ventured off, I hosted a session with the Vienna Skill Smiths to talk about setting up a freelance business. A lot of the conversations I have had in the past months with people who either are freelancers or want to go freelance have inspired what I am now writing and soon publishing in my second book.

I will be in New York in December, so please get in touch if you want to grab a cup of coffee with me!

These days, it’s hard to write positive messages while seeing all the disastrous events happening right outside of our doors. Every time I open Facebook, I close it with goose bumps all over my body. Nevertheless, there is a lot of great stuff happening too, and it’s especially my friends who are doing marvellous, inspiring projects that I would love to introduce to you today. To briefly explain the situation: after a month of not publishing any newsletters, I still cannot bring myself to writing anything but the articles I am paid to write or the monthly wrap-ups I publish to reflect on the accomplished work of the previous month. But that also calls for a small step. And so here is mine: a selection of projects of the people I admire for the work they do. I hope you enjoy their work as much as I do:

Anne is currently working on launching a coding school, Refugees on Rails, that will help refugees find jobs in an industry where there aren’t enough workers to take on these tasks.

Talia’s beautiful jewellery that was produced in collaboration with J. & L. Lobmeyr is now available for sale. Also, here are her thoughts on the current refugee situation from a designer’s perspective. Worth a read.

After July happened to be such an incredibly busy month, I decided to take it slow in August. I focused on the outreach for Kickstarter and spent a few weeks in Holland, trying to better understand the market and also to find locations to speak in front of creative audiences. If you know of communities that might be interested in learning more about how to run a Kickstarter campaign, please get in touch! Thank you!

August in Europe is an incredibly quiet month. Nevertheless, when you talk to people, you quickly notice they’re all slowly gearing up for September. I cannot wait for some great Kickstarter projects to launch soon or the ones that have launched already, such as the Comedy Café in Berlin. Big hooray for the guys who’ve done such an incredibly cool video! Watch it!

On the 1st of August, I was once again picked as one of Instagram’s suggested users, so my account skyrocketed to an incredible 83.4K followers. Ironically enough, I was featured right after I had explained to a number of people I met at the DNX conference what I believe is important when you want your Instagram account to get noticed. You can read a blogpost about that here.

On another note, I managed to attend a couple of incredible events in August; events that I would like to recommend to you for next year. First, I went to the DNX conference for digital nomads. While I wished the conference to be a little more constructive and the speakers to talk more about their techniques and not just attitudes, I am glad I had the chance to finally meet Tim Chimoy in person! If you would like to learn more about the lives of digital nomads and what it takes to live such a life, follow up here.

Another event that you should definitely put on your bucket list is Fringe in Edinburgh, a festival dedicated to the world of theatre. Every year, the entire city fills up with artists and performers, which makes for the most unique atmosphere and the most memorable moments. I would really like to spend the entire month there next year. Preferably, with a theatre group to help them with their comms. I helped Sarah Calver a bit with her Instagram while I was there and managed to bump her Insta followers from 27 to 106 in about 10 days. If I’d have focused on working on a project like this full time, I’m sure the results would be even better. So, if you’re looking for someone to help you with the production and comms of your #EdFringe2016 piece (or know of someone who does), don’t hesitate and get in touch!

After returning from Holland and Scotland, I headed to the European Forum Alpbach to finally understand what that event is all about. If you’re from Austria, you’ve probably heard about the EFA many times. The local media covers many of the discussions between scientists, entrepreneurs, and students who meet to talk in Alpbach every year. It is indeed a unique experience to meet thousands of highly educated people in a teeny tiny village in the mountains.

For the last weekend of August, I hopped on the plane one more time to join the great people at Betahaus for their People in Beta festival to speak about Kickstarter, and I’ll be back there on the 9th until the 15th of September. It’ll be your chance to talk to me in person if you have a project that you’d like to discuss.

Last month, I mentioned that you should have a profile on Contently, and this month, I would like to recommend Klaiton to you, a Vienna-based consultant agency to help SMBs find the right consultants for their business. After a number of interviews and personality tests, I became one of their selected consultants. I’m pumped to see what sort of clients I’ll get to work with in the future. I am, of course, also open to other projects, so if you need help with something, please don’t hesitate and get in touch.

Ok, and now the last (and maybe the best) piece of information for today: I’ve finally begun working on another book! Originally, I thought I’d write one on how to invest money and do so from a female perspective, but then I figured that before freelancers have money, they have time that is worth investing in too. I began working on a book called “My Creative (Side) Business” to better explain multiple income streams and how to build a stable business in the creative industries. I have already interviewed a woman (one of the most kick-ass people I’ve ever met!) who takes pictures of pets for a living, an incredible English teacher, and a pattern designer.. many more to follow!

I’m also currently working on a Skillshare class, but more on that in a couple of weeks! Yay! And if you think all of this is crazy, I still have time to work with you on your projects, so please let me know. I’m excited to hear from you.